Previously, the addition of a capacitor filter to a PC board was made by mounting a prefabricated radial or linear ceramic capacitor or other capacitor having connecting leads extending therefrom on the PC board between two or more DIP positions on the board. Such mounting used PC board space which otherwise could have been allocated to additional DIP positions, other components or board metallizations. Thus, the number of DIP positions were decreased by the space used by the mounted ceramic capacitors. More recently, products have been marketed which
(1) use a four lead flat insulated metal capacitor on an insulative board, with the four pins extending from the package. The metal film capacitor is placed under a DIP package and each of the four pins share a PC board mounting hole with a DIP lead pin (sold by Rogers Corp. under the trademark MicroQ); PA1 (2) use a multi-socket auxiliary board having the same size and number of sockets as the DIP package has pins and which is interposed between the PC board and the underside of the DIP package. A capacitor is fixed on the socket board and connected by circuit traces with two of the multi-sockets (sold by Electronic Molding Corp. under the trademark The Silencer); and PA1 (3) use other multi-socket auxiliary boards with standard leaded capacitors (sold by Advanced Interconnections and Garry New Quiet Sockets).
Each of these prior art auxiliary boards have a relatively high height which can interface with clearance requirements of the PC board or are relatively expensive items. Particularly, items (2) and (3) require the use of from 6 to 48 relatively expensive sockets on each auxiliary board with attendant high assembly costs.
The present invention allows inexpensive decoupling of all IC positions on a PC board without redesign or special socketing on existing production boards. On a new PC board product is saves costs and layout time with increased package density on the PC board or results in a smaller PC board size. It is simple to install and has no easily bendable parts which can cause misalignment problems during hand or automatic insertion on a PC board. The present invention is a surface mounted device compatible with the latest surface mount technology.